Sometimes images pull all kinds of things to the surface of your mind, so with this one the Geena Davis movie The Long Kiss Goodbye bobbed up. It was a particular science where she is inevitably tie to a water wheel as a form of torture to illicit truths to the bad guys. I had this image in my mind of going under the water and seeing the river reeds all flowing in one direction with the river flow. It is a flow on from ” …of home” as I liked the colour texture and movement. I must add that the movie did not occur to me til I had finished the painting. Another thought that came to me was that emotions have revolutions, rarely are emotions held for long periods except those deadening feelings when the flow of emotion is halted against its natural direction. Maybe that’s where the river comes in, a water wheel us active exactly because it concedes to the natural direction of the river flow. The water wheel is situated in a liminal position half in half out if water, which is how I conceive of emotions half in half out of consciousness. Maybe that is where the movie metaphor comes in, emotions mediate our conscious sun conscious selfs in brining out truths. We own what comes up in that interchange and for someone else to demand those truths made them the “baddies”. We own our stories, they are precious, it takes a lot to put those storied out there in the public to be used by others for their own purposes. The difference between people using the stories for themselves is different to using them to make judgements on the original producers. Only I know the value and meaning of my stories to me. But others are welcome to entertain the same process I undergo for themselves.

Don’t make the mistake that you know me, I am far more complicated and far too many memories events and investigations to which you are not privy. Something you may say I make use of, but that does not give you expertise on the individual that is me.

I hold nature inside of me … It is not out there, don’t bother to look. It has never been out there. Like this painting the object does not exist anymore. It is here inside of me, but no need to look. Looking won’t do you any good … It is here inside of me I tell you. You can only tell it is here by feeling … The feeling tells you much more about its nature than looking. I don’t think you can know it by looking, that just evolves another memory, feeling on the other hand creates something. No you don’t get it do you? You don’t get it from words either, you have to feel it. If you don’t feel it you don’t get it. The feeling creates, nothing else does. Remember like the painting it does not exist, it is a feeling inside, that’s what nature is …

Push Out refers to a boat image, launching something into the sea,. It us the start of a journey and there needs to be a deliberate action of stretch to get things moving. So it is with life, not much happens when you don’t start it yourself. The odd things do happen to you, but I think mostly in response to what you yourself make go. Life does not stop if you do, but I think it levels to a kind of numbness. Suppose passion involves activity energy converted to doing something concrete.

The birds/butterflies I suppose can be then understood to be transformative processes, for when you do something things change, the action changes your perceptions or understandings both of yourself and the world.

A funny little painting, it changes colour depending on the light in the room, more dramatically than any other painting I have. I liken it to the word that sailed over the waters in the beginning of time, maybe that is why it illuminates only sometimes and then retreats back into itself at others.

That is how this one is … The title comes from a passage in the Ugly Duckling, that venerable tale of individuation. The lake begins to ice over the ugly duckling has to vigorously flap wings, not to be frozen to the spot. In the same way, we are in danger when emotions threaten to freeze us to the spot negate our ability to process, to feel, to acknowledge elation and hurt to the same degree, to allow it to enter our bodies fully. The courage and effort that requires is immense, compared to the numbness of inaction. The red berries/eggs are the gifts wrought of energy expended. It is not instant gratification, but we then carry the potentials with us, not knowing where and when they will bear fruit. It is a trust of knowing what we carry inside as a consequence of our actions. Foundations are often hidden capacities not fully known until we enter into a sphere that requires there use. I like to think of my store house I build up by feeling truthfully, but not quite knowing in what particular way they have changed me.

Spasm … mmm funny name for a painting don’t you think. I had been painting for a while when this one came in. The more I painted the more the process became one of embodiment, the line between where I ended and the painting began blurred. Maybe this is a good process for the codependent to go with, unsure of connecting to yourself, you fill the space with the feelings issues and problems of others. The painting entered into me, the space depicted is very much an internal one. Spasm, located in a muscle perhaps conjoined the awkwardness of painting on the ground, no delicate touches on a pre-stretched canvas here. It was raw, physical, bounded by my physical capacity to stretch touch grind the paint into the surface. My attention draws inwards on painting. I am aware of my body my physical strengths, fuzzy headed in distinct, the particular ness comes afterwards, in addressing what happened. I don’t care when I am doing, I care when I am finished. The finished becomes finished when the painting feels like something, not good or bad but feels like something tangible touchable readable, the painting returns a feeling towards me.

What can I say ….I love painting. The colour texture line movement, it is all like a dance that encapsulates all I go through and bring to while I am at a canvas. I discover myself through art and so transform that expression of me. It is part response to my living world environment part my internal space, my emotional life, and those flashing bits of subconscious, chasing them down in a physical form.